


ghost by my side, so perfectly clear

by capra, running_with_luck



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Crisis of identity, Death, Depression, Electrocution, Explicit Sex, Gore, Grief, Identity Issues, Later chapters will include surrealist horror/gore and ptsd, M/M, Memory Loss, Night Terrors, Poorly Negotiated Consent, Possession Kink, Requited Unrequited Love, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, anger is not an end goal, casper the friendly ghost - Freeform, communing with ghosts (heh), content warnings include:, discussion of suicide, emotional masochism, fujiwari no sai of the 21st century, happy endings (heh), if the mind is memory and a ghost is just a mind, if you can't remember who you are then are you a whom at all, who needs a spirit box when you have ouija boards
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-01-24 12:10:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21338038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/capra, https://archiveofourown.org/users/running_with_luck/pseuds/running_with_luck
Summary: After losing his longtime best friend and roommate to an apparent suicide, Yuzu moves across town to get away from bad memories and the regrets of an unrequited love he never got to confess. Lucky for him, Shoma's ghost is waiting for him in his new apartment.All things considered, he takes the news rather well.Contains a lot of tw's so please be mindful of the tags.
Relationships: Yuzuru Hanyu/Shoma Uno
Comments: 24
Kudos: 45
Collections: capra's NaNoPostMo 2019





	1. First haunting: t-shirts

**Author's Note:**

> This fic handles some very heavy themes - through the death of a loved one, Yuzuru has to grapple with grief, depression, anger, and his own personal mental demons. Please be careful when reading, particularly for the following three themes:   
  
_content warning: Major Character Death_   
Shoma spends most of the fic as a ghost. He died before the beginning of the story.   
  
_content warning: Suicide_   
It's suggested in the fic that Shoma committed suicide, and this is NOT what happened - while Yuzu doesn't find this out for a long while in the narrative, because this is a sensitive topic, I'm uncomfortable with leaving my readers in suspense or confusion on it. No suicide happened or was attempted at any point in this fic.   
  
_content warning: Mild to moderate Gore_   
Some of Yuzuru's nightmares become very graphic, and involve some amount of body horror and moderate gore. These are illusions, but they feel real to Yuzuru at the time.
> 
> There is also a fair amount of reflection from both characters about how Shoma died, including descriptions of the wound that killed him.

_Musing through memories_  
_Losing my grip in the grey_  
_Numbing the senses_  
_I feel you slipping away_  
_Fighting to hold on_  
_Clinging to just one more day_  
_Love turns to ashes_  
_With all that I wish I could say_

_I'd die to be where you are_  
_I tried to be where you are_

\- still here, digital daggers

**

### 《first haunting: t-shirts》

Shoma doesn't remember much about his life alive. He knows his name is Shoma something, ...and that's about it. His first memory of his existence is standing in the lobby of the apartment complex. Black and white tile flooring cut off by doors and the stairs leading up and an elevator that every time he touches it, it decides not to work. That was the day a man walked right through him to go to the elevator and his discovery of his effect on machines.

He can walk like a normal person, though he makes no sound, but walls don't seem to adhere to normal rules when you're a ghost and he can phase right through them. He did that less when he realized that when living people felt him, they typically did not react well.

He chose an apartment that hadn't been rented out in some time as his own. It felt right, like he'd been there before but couldn't quite place it, and it had the added bonus of no living people to bother with his presence.

That is, until someone moved in.

The boxes were the first to arrive, then the tenant himself. A wispy looking man, tall with soft features. He, like the apartment itself, seemed familiar but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Shoma's curiosity kept him in the room as he watched this man unpack.

  
**   
  
It was frustrating.

Yuzu tried not to think about things as he unpacked his things into his new apartment. 

He tried not to let it get at him when, even after two hours of moving boxes and setting things up, he still kept turning left from the kitchen hallway and expecting to end up in the bathroom. 

(That was the layout at the old apartment. Here, he has to turn right.)

He tried not to be irritated as he unpacked his silverware and put it away in its new drawer. It was his old stuff from college, back when he'd thought having mismatched silverware picked up at the thrift shop was fun and intriguing.

(The nice set, the one he'd bought only a few months ago, was staying in storage. So were the high-quality steak knives that came with it- the knives that were the reason that Yuzu had decided to buy the set in the first place.)

He tried not to be mad at himself when he set up the living room and thought, after finishing the job in forty minutes, that it was a hell of a lot easier with so many fewer cords to trip over--

(The game systems went into storage too. Not his, though, because they weren't his to begin with. Itsuki had asked Yuzu if he'd wanted to hold on to any of them. Yuzu had looked at the Playstation, thinking about the thousands of hours logged on the games stored on its hard drive, thinking about the time that, laughing, they'd joked about it, about how Yuzu should have it if Shoma ever--

Yuzu had told Itsuki no, he didn't want any of the systems.  _ But, please be careful with that one. It's irreplaceable _ .)

Yuzu  _ tried _ . It was a new building, new apartment, new furniture and new dishes. New towels, even. He'd embraced as much change as he could manage, discarded or put away as much of the familiar, the things that would  _ remind _ him, as he could. 

He was doing well, holding himself together pretty admirably. Until, while putting away his clothes in his new wardrobe and new dresser, he dumped a bundle of t-shirts out of the box they'd been shoved into. 

He had packed, where he could, as quickly as he'd could. Dishes and breakables obviously needed to be packed with care, but his clothes, he'd just thrown into bags and boxes.

He dumped a ball of t-shirts out of their box and onto his bed and began untangling them. And mixed in with his shirts was one of Shoma's. An old one, well worn in, with pixelated video game art on it. It was the kind of shirt that retains its wearer's form and scent even fresh from the wash. And in Yuzu's hands, the soft drape and feel of the cotton brought it all back. 

Everything he'd held back, for the years and years of friendship. For months as roommates, looking at their shared life, one set of dishes and knowing what brand of body wash Shoma liked best and wondering, wondering  _ what if _ . Everything that he'd locked down when-- when it had happened. Caught in the center of the hurricane of grief and funeral arrangements and family mourning that surrounded the hole in the world formed by Shoma's absence, the last thing he wanted to think about was his own feelings. There were people hurting far more than him, people who needed his help.

Yuzu had  _ tried _ to simply cope. But now, as the first sob ripped from his throat, he didn't try to hold it back any longer. He curled up in a ball on his bed, hugging Shoma's shirt to his chest, and he cried and cried and cried.

"Shoma," he pleaded, between big gasps of air. "Shoma, Shoma, Shoma. I should have told you. I should have told you, Shoma, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I loved you. I-- I _loved _you."

  
**   
  
It turns out that Shoma did not lose his ability to read, a fact he adds to his ever-growing understanding of what he can and can't do as a ghost. The boxes mailed there had 'Yuzuru Hanyu' scrawled in hurried writing, presumably from the man himself. Watching this man, this 'Yuzuru', unpack puts a feeling of unease in Shoma's theoretical stomach. That seems like too many silverware and dishes for just one man. Too few video game consoles, so probably just the right amount for someone who isn't a 'gamer'... Wait. Had he been a gamer? He will have to experiment later and see if he can get the console itself to boot up.

This unease and a lack of a smartphone has Shoma watching Yuzuru, choosing to keep his distance, but following him from room to room. A sense of frustration practically radiated off Yuzuru. In the loneliness of the apartment, it seems whatever walls Yuzuru had put up were not in place here. Shoma thinks to himself that this not how a person who is moving to a new place should seem. He's seen a few move ins and outs by now, in his idle floating about the place. Mostly couples, young and excited, though annoyed at the amount of things collected over the years, or elderly who need help moving to some place easier to access.

This seems different... Miserable, even. Like Yuzuru is running away from something.

A ball of t-shirts falls out of a box, nearly retaining the shape of the box itself and nestled in among the shirts is something very familiar to Shoma, which is doubly odd. Why does Yuzuru have his shirt? ... How does he know this is his shirt?

And then he hears his name. His name uttered by the stranger that captured his attention ever since he set foot inside the apartment.

Why does Yuzuru know his name? Why is he crying? Who is this man? How much does Shoma not know? It's never truly bothered Shoma until now that he did not know who he was or where he had came from.

He... This man, Yuzuru Hanyu loved him. Loved? Had Shoma... loved him back? Is that what this nagging sensation is?

Forgetting that he isn't corporeal, Shoma reaches for Yuzuru. A compulsion to comfort him, to tell him that it's okay and he doesn't need to cry, and an urge to know more about himself makes him touch where Yuzuru's hands gripped at Shoma's shirt tightly.

"Please don't cry."

  
**   
  
Caught in the storm of his grief, Yuzu feels like nothing can reach him. There's no one here, and there won't be; not even his sister has a spare key to this new apartment. He's half a city away from his old neighborhood, his old favorite grocery and gym and park. He'd have left the city entirely, if not for his job. He's isolated himself as thoroughly as he can, trying to hide away from everything that could remind him of Shoma.

In the back of his mind, he'd known it wouldn't work, but he had to try anyway.

Now, the grief has caught up with him, and he has to face it alone. Every sob feels like it's crushing his ribcage from the inside out. It's too strong to stand against; it flattens Yuzu, and he can't help but let it.

But suddenly, he feels something like knives slicing across his hands. He chokes, yelping in the middle of a sob, and reflexively tries to jerk his hands away. The feeling  _ follows _ them, coating the backs of his fingers with a feeling that's so cold it feels bladed. 

Yuzu remembers feeling something similar years ago. He once stuck his hand into a small creek out in the woods when he was younger; the water was snowmelt, running down from the glaciers in the north, and it attacked his hand with a sensation so intense and so fast that it couldn't simply be called 'cold'. It made his hand instantly numb, and yet through the numbness he could still feel the cold, knifing its way into his joints. It was a sensation that felt, somehow, ancient. As if the extremity of it, the unarguable danger of it, was older by centuries than his own skin and bone.

This, right now, feels like that. There's glacial pain across his hand, a pain that lingers even after he yanks his hand far enough away, dropping the shirt he held and scuttling away from the spot on the bed where he was laying when the sensation of cold arrived. He clutches his hand to his chest, looking around the empty room wildly. What just happened? Even a blast of A/C wouldn't be enough to do that.

Yuzu's wild searching gaze snags and stops on a...ripple, in the air, near the foot end of the bed. He squints, rubbing the thickly welling tears out of his eyes. But the ripple doesn't go away. In fact, it's even more clear.

"What..."

**   
  
Yuzuru's shriek and recoil pulls Shoma back down to the reality of his situation. Shoma hadn't been sure what he had expected. He can't touch anyone, just make them extremely cold. He literally goes right through them. People can 'feel' him in the room, see him in the corner of their eye when he's near them, but never has he been able to touch or  _ be _ touched since he came to being. Why would Yuzuru be any different? 

Maybe he had heard him, though? Did that frighten him too?

A wild and wide-eyed gaze from Yuzuru scans the room, passing over Shoma a few times. Hunting for the source of the cold, it seems. If Yuzuru is like anyone else he's encountered, if nothing else happens, they'll never think of it again. They'll pretend it's a fluke incident and go on with their lives. 

_ Please. Please, just this once, I want to be seen. I want answers. _

Maybe what he's thinking helps will himself into focus because Yuzuru's gaze lands on him. A very... confused and unfocused gaze. 

"You... You can see me? Can you hear me?" Shoma speaks, louder and clearer than when he had tried to comfort Yuzuru.   
**   
  
There's a buzzing, ringing sensation in Yuzu's ears, like the after-echoes of a sound that's too loud. Except there was no sound to cause the feeling. His hands throb as though the sudden cold cut them, and the ripple in the air at the foot of his bed is, definitely, growing more clear the longer and harder he stares at it.

The ringing in Yuzu's ears suddenly increases in intensity, flaring for a few distinct seconds, then abruptly subsiding. He claps his hands to cover his ears, reflexive, before his conscious mind catches up and reminds him, yet again, that there was no loud noise, nothing to protect his ears from. No firework or booming stereo or earphones turned up too loud. He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the sensation of pressure, of buzzing low-grade pain, from his ears. It doesn't really help, and he rubs at them sourly.

Yuzu looks at the foot of the bed again. The ripple is  _ still there _ , and it looks like it's got a color now. Very, very faint, so faint that Yuzu is half certain that he's making it up. But if he's not, if it's not a trick of his sore eyes, the ripple - the  _ wrinkled  _ section of air - is faintly blue.

"What the fuck is happening," he mutters.   
  
**   
  
It's odd watching someone wince at the sound of his voice. Is it painful? But clearly Yuzuru can hear  _ something _ . And a feeling deep down is telling Shoma that he needs to tell him something. It's important. What it is, he doesn't know, but he's sure he'll remember it.

"Yuzuru-" He tries again, moving closer. Maybe if he's closer, he can be heard. Like a faulty radio connection?

The shirt on the bed catches Shoma's eye. That's the shirt Yuzuru was crying into. Had it been his? Maybe that can help get his message across as to who he is!

He reaches for it, but his hand phases through the shirt, bed and blankets. Not surprising there. He hadn't successfully lifted anything the entire time he's been here.

_ No. Focus harder. C'mon, move! Just a little bit! Remember what it was like to touch things. _ And, just for a moment, the shirt tugs away from Yuzuru by an inch, as if a wire had been pulled on the other end of the room.

  
**   
  
The buzzing pain comes back into Yuzu's ears, increasing the pressure inside his skull. It feels like the pressure change on an airplane, or a very fast elevator, except Yuzu can't yawn it away. It's just pressing, and pressing, and feels like it's getting  _ louder _ somehow, except that pain doesn't have volume, but  _ this  _ pain feels like a sound. No-- an absence thereof. It's an  _ absence  _ of sound, a vacuum into which there was supposed to be something, and is now nothing. The vacuum is pushing at his head, pushing at his eardrums, and Yuzu screws his eyes shut, gritting his teeth against the pain. It feels like his head's going to explode. He's never had a migraine like this before, but what else could it be?

Then the shirt -  _ Shoma's  _ shirt - moves.

Yuzu's eyes fly open, and he looks at the shirt, more precisely at the bedcovers where the shirt  _ was _ laying. It's moved. Has it moved? No. But he  _ felt  _ it tug out from under his knee. Didn't he?

Then it moves again, another tiny twitch, another inch of distance covered, and this time Yuzu's eyes are wide open to see the whole thing. He sees the shirt move, pulled by one point as if pulled by an invisible fishing hook, dragging it away from him. He sees the wrinkle in the air, the blue ripple, and sees that it's closer. It's a  _ lot  _ closer, and it's hovering over the shirt.

Yuzu shrieks and reaches for Shoma's shirt. The edges of the air ripple aren't distinct, and his arms cross through the chilly edges of it as he lurches forward, grabs the shirt with both hands, and then shoves himself backwards, scrabbling up the bed until he runs out of space to run, back pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, arms clutching the shirt against his chest like some kind of safety blanket.

" _ Haunted? _ This place is  _ haunted? _ " Yuzu squawks, staring at the very, very much not in his imagination ripple of inexplicably blue-tinted air hovering over the middle of his bed. "Shit!"

Yuzu's head is  _ ringing _ and there's spots around the edges of his vision. He bites his tongue, trying to distract himself from the nausea that's building. He does  _ not  _ have time for an attack right now, thank you very much, he needs to defend himself against the fucking  _ ghost  _ that lives in his  _ bedroom _ .

" _ Shit! _ "   
  
**   
  
Shoma makes a face that Yuzuru presumably can't seem to see, frustrated. That shriek isn't necessary. He isn't going to kill him. He just wants to make contact! Is it that hard to grasp?

The only thing being grasped right now is Shoma's shirt in Yuzuru's clutches. That's his shirt. It has to be.

This frustrated emotion seems to build on itself. So many times he's tried to have someone see him. So many times he's tried to find answers. Nothing. Not a thing. Shoma just wants to cry out, annoyed at himself for not managing to get anything right.

He turns on the room itself. "Will someone please just see me for once?!" he yells at the empty space, dimly aware that he accidentally shoved an empty box in his frustration.

The anger fizzles out as quickly as it came and he just turns to see the frightened Yuzuru, his only real hope he's had yet.

"Can someone just... please hear me?"

  
**   
  
The empty moving box sitting in the middle of the room - the one that all the shirts came out of - suddenly flies across the room, hitting the far wall with a weak thud. The pressure between Yuzu's ears increases to an unbearable level, and his vision starts to white out. Is this ghost trying to kill him? He writhes, curling up into a ball on top of his pillows.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it stops. Everything is still, and silent, and the whole room feels ten degrees cooler than it did half a second ago. When it's clear the attack, whatever it was, isn't coming back, Yuzu dares to open his eyes.

The ripple in the air is purple now, a dim dark shade, much more opaque. It's not a mist or a fog; it's not an object. It's just a section of air that's differently colored, and kind of shimmery. It seems to be growing denser, pulling into itself.

And it has a voice. A hollow, faint, distantly echoing voice.

_ "hear me. hear me?" _

Honestly, Yuzu's not sure what else he could have done in this moment, besides what he does do: answer.

"I-- I can hear you."   
  
**   
  
Now what? Shoma can't be seen or heard. The closest he got to an answer about what happened is terrified of him and hurts when he talks... Maybe he should just disap-

Shoma's head snaps up at the small voice. What was that? Did Yuzuru just answer him? Out loud? Hope starts to grow inside him, like a small warmth. Maybe not all is lost.

"Yuzuru-! It's me! Shoma!" Shoma gently floats closer, but keeps his distance. Apparently touching him hurt something. He doesn't get how being a ghost works any better than normal people it seems.

"I'm Shoma!" If nothing else gets through, then please let it just be his name. Please. If only he had the means to communicate through something.

  
**   
  
The ripple moves, turning a brighter purple color and growing slightly in size. Yuzu has no more room to back away from it, so he stays where he is, clinging to Shoma's shirt like some kind of lifeline. But a tee shirt isn't going to save him.

The ripple speaks again. Its voice is distorted, dulled, as if it's being whispered through water. Yuzu can tell it's speech, that the paranormal phenomenon in his  _ bedroom _ is definitely, actually, concretely trying to  _ talk to him _ . But he can't make out what it's saying.

"What - what are you?" he asks. The ripple --  _ ghost _ , Yuzu thinks distantly, feeling hysterical, it's a  _ ghost,  _ I'm talking to a ghost -- speaks again, and this time, Yuzu can hear it more clearly.

_ "me...me" _

"You?" The logical part of Yuzu's brain is rebelling, insisting there's no way that this can be happening. Ghosts don't exist, not like they do in movies. Spirits, an afterlife, sure, but--this?

But he can't argue with the facts, can he? it's right here, talking to him.

"You're a ghost?"

" _ Shoma,"  _ the voice echoes.  _ "Shoma." _ It's clear as a bell this time.

Yuzu's expression goes from skeptical to crushed in a split second. He shoves himself up, first to sitting and then off the bed, and turns in place, looking all over his room, hands balled up in fists. Of  _ course  _ it's not a ghost, he tells himself, as his voice shakes and fresh tears well up in his eyes. But these tears are not of sorrow but anger.  _ Of course, that's impossible. _

"Where are you! Get out here right now!" Yuzu glares all around the room, the corners of the ceiling and the dark shadows between the books on his bookshelves, squinting through the tears. There's got to be a hidden camera. He has to find it and crush it. "Who's doing this? Is this some kind of prank? Do you think it's fucking  _ funny _ ? God damn you all, get out here! How dare you use his name for a joke! You're sick! Get out here, who is it? Who is it, who's filming this?"

"Why the fuck do you care," he yells, beginning to lose momentum, sinking to his knees on the hardwood floor. He claws at the floor with his fingers, gritting his teeth, but there's nothing he can do to make his heart stop hurting. "Who the hell cares about me enough to bother mocking me like this?"   
  
**   
  
"I'm right here-!" Shoma tries to answer Yuzuru, but as Yuzu's rage carries on, Shoma realizes that Yuzuru is also one of those that, like many who live here in the apartment complex, are quick to write off the supernatural as just... nothing. It's hard to un-convince someone of anything when they believe it in their heart.

Shoma sits in front of Yuzuru, at a loss for what to do. Where does he go from here?

"How can I prove to you I'm real?" he asks, unsure if he'll still be heard. 

It's difficult for him to prove that he's Shoma. Hell, he might not even be the right Shoma. There could be other Shomas out there. But... Something told him that wasn't likely. That same something insisted that he needed to talk to Yuzuru. To tell him something important.

And if he had to actively haunt Yuzuru every day to get his attention, then he would.   
***   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> depression's a bitch, you guys.
> 
> know that feel? we sure fuckin do too. tell us about it in the comments.


	2. second haunting: a bell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Establishing communication isn't as easy as just picking up the phone anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of section breaks in this chapter because they're having a dialogue but a lot of it has to be accomplished with unspoken perspective due to, yanno. Ghosty limitations. Sorry 'bout that!

*

**

***

_I dream you're still here_  
_But it breaks so easily _

_I'd die to be where you are_  
_I tried to be where you are_

\- still here, digital daggers

### 《second haunting: a bell》

Over the next week, Yuzuru learns a lot about himself. 

He learns that he's got a deep wellspring of anger within him, and that it feels better to get angry than it does to cry again like he did on his first day in this apartment. To avoid another breakdown like that, Yuzu decides he's going to keep himself busy, and when busyness isn't enough, then he'll just make himself busier.

His certainty that someone is playing a cruel, extremely elaborate prank on him is dampened with each day that goes by, as more inexplicable events occur. He learns, with absolutely no pleasure, that there's something unnatural happening in every room of the apartment.

In the living room, the television will sometimes suddenly dramatically increase in volume, then turn off. It happens with small kitchen appliances, too; his little blender for making his personal shakes suddenly turns on one day, shaking and whirring away at its highest setting for two terrifying seconds, before it just as abruptly stops and tips over onto its side.

In his bathroom, kanji and katakana appear in the fog on his mirror - but they're scrambled, not quite legible. Yuzu can't tell if there's strokes missing or out of place, but despite the nonsensical shape of the 'words,' they give him a deep feeling of seasickness, as if the barometric pressure in the room drops while he's looking at them. As soon as he looks away, everything feels normal again.

The cold spot he felt the first day is mobile now, to his great regret. It seems to, impossibly, follow him around, like it's pulled in his wake. The temperature difference is most noticeable in the bedroom, despite the fact that Yuzu put away Shoma's shirt in the very back of the very bottom drawer of his dresser and hasn't so much as peeked at it since.

In the entryway, mail regularly slides off of the little table that's meant to hold it. At first, Yuzu assumes he assembled the table incorrectly, and that the top is slanted. But then he watches his keys slide away from him, while his mail slides off to the left, and the small potted succulent plant sitting near them almost tips off the table's front edge. Yuzu catches the plant, stares at the table, and decides he's had enough. 

Yuzu sets the little plant down in the middle of his living room coffee table, hopefully far enough away from any edges that it'll be safe, and then really _ thinks _ about the fact that he's thinking about this as if the whatever-it-is, is a naughty cat or something. He growls in frustration, raking his fingers through his hair, and tips his head back to talk to the ceiling. He keeps his eyes closed so he doesn't feel quite as foolish.

"Alright. _ You _ . Whatever you are. I am going to - to go buy you something. And if you want to talk to me, we're going to use that from now on, okay? And then maybe I can worry less about whether you're going to accidentally electrocute me or kill my plant or- or something. _ Okay? _ Shit."

He comes back a few hours later, carrying a few small items in his totes. He puts the bag and its contents down on the table next to his plant and goes into the kitchen to cook. After making and eating a big (and very tasty) dinner, Yuzu considers the dishes, specifically the chef knives he used to prepare dinner with, and decides to leave them in the sink for now, until he's got his new purchases set up and ready to… receive.

Just in case. 

There's a deck of tarot cards, a Ouija board - traditional, not westernized - and a small bell. The man at the shop told him that his 'honored guest' would learn to use the bell to summon his attention if it had something it wanted to tell him. The bell, supposedly, would make possible two- way communication between himself and his 'roommate'.

Yuzu was skeptical, to say the least. 

"Okay," he announces, once he's got the ouija board and the bell set up, with the tarot deck set off to the side for the moment. He's never used one, and the board seems a lot less intimidating somehow. Less complicated, at least. 

"Okay. For the first and the last time, I am _ formally _ asking you, if you're here - whoever, _ whatever _ is here - to please prove it to me. And please use these tools because if you turn my blender on one more time, I'll move out."

**

  
Shoma has learned a lot about himself this week too. Primarily: being a ghost is _ so frustrating! _ Shoma tried everything he could think of. He touched electronics, trying out different degrees of emotion while he touched them, with varying reactions, not all of them consistent. He thought maybe he could project his voice- but that just made the TV louder, or made a blender spin out of control. _ That one _caused such a funny reaction in Yuzuru that Shoma kept prodding on the blender every once in a while, just for fun.

Efforts to write things out didn't work either. Just as he started to think he had the correct kanji traced in the steam? His hand would just slip right through the mirror. There's still a note that fell under the couch that Shoma painstakingly wrote with a pen. It... did look haunted, which Shoma guesses is the point, but still, the wasted effort was frustrating. He feels like he’s trying to bake without a recipe. How do ghosts normally communicate? Is there a ghost Google? _ Boo _gle?

Over the week, he’s also had to bail out, mid-task, and leave the room more than once to avoid Yuzuru. Because often, as Yuzuru and most living people did normally, he would get naked to change or shower. And Shoma was trying to maintain _ some _respect for his privacy at least.

So when Yuzuru speaks up - more specifically speaks up _ at him _ \- Shoma is thrilled. He’s happy to behave himself and wait for Yuzuru’s return without causing any more mayhem; the purpose has been achieved.  
  
Time doesn’t have the same meaning to a ghost as it does to a human, so Yuzuru’s trip takes both no time at all, and forever. Shoma pushed the little potted plant around a little to entertain himself while he waited. And as soon as Yuzuru did return, Shoma could feel... _ something _in the bag. Which is a big deal for someone who literally can't feel the ground under his feet.

While Yuzuru is busy cooking and eating, Shoma curiously inspects the bag with the remaining contents. A bell, a deck of weird shaped cards, and a board with characters? He can see how the board might be useful, but a bell?

Shoma sits across from Yuzuru as those things are set up on the table. And the moment that they are, something happens.  
  
Shoma doesn’t quite know how to define it. It’s intangible, obviously - everything about him is right now - but it’s concrete at the same time. It’s like the feeling of looking at a closed door and simply _ knowing _ whether it was locked or unlocked.  
  
Yuzuru's open invitation feels like Shoma has watched a door be unlocked. Nothing visible has changed, but he knows, deep down in his soul, that communication should be easier now.

Shoma reaches for the ouija board, but finds he can't move the little triangle piece around. Unlike the other objects he’s handled, this one felt...empty. He isn't enough on his own to cause a reaction. And the same seems to apply to the deck of cards. However, as soon as Shoma touches the bell, it rings. It’s not an acute chime, like a ball hitting the metal would create. This is a single note that simply... resounds, as though he were tracing his finger around the edge of a wine glass

Yuzu jumps away from the table so fast, so abruptly, that he jams his knee against the underside. Now he's cursing in pain, and surprise, and pain, and of course fear. 

"Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. Fuck!"

Yuzu stares at the bell, which is still quietly resonating at low volume. He grabs it, stopping the vibration, and when he lets go of it, there's true silence in the room once more. 

"Okay..." Yuzu exhales. "Okay. Alright." He squares his shoulders and steadies his breathing, looking at the bell the whole while.

"If you can understand me... do that again."

Shoma looks on as Yuzuru swears up a storm and laughs softly to himself. That looked like it hurt, but the face he made was so funny. If only there was a bell thing to tell Yuzuru that he didn't mean any harm.

The noise didn't scare Yuzu enough to want to stop, at least, and he’s sort of kind of looking in Shoma’s direction now. That’s something.

This time, instead of just touching the bell, Shoma places his whole palm over the top of it, curious what difference it would make. This makes the resonance a bit louder, more intense. 

Huh. Maybe he's starting to get the hang of this whole ghost thing.

_ Yes. I can understand you. I've understood you this whole time. _

  
**  
  


The bell begins to ring again. 

This time the sound is louder, deeper. Fuller, somehow, almost as if the bell has gotten bigger. Though his body still flinches, fear making his muscles tense to run away, Yuzu doesn't give in. His hands are closed in fists, resting on his knees as he kneels in front of his coffee table, and as the bell's resonance grows his back straightens, bringing him up into a perfect upright posture, as he faces the simple metal bowl down like it's his opponent in some kind of battle of wills. 

_ Well it IS, _ he reminds himself, trying to keep his breath steady. _ Remember what the shop guy said. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this. _

"Alright then," Yuzu says, holding his voice as steady as he can manage. "Okay. You can understand me. Time for introductions."

Yuzu breathes out. The man at the shop had been very clear about the importance of the next few steps, and Yuzu had listened to his explanations with polite attention, all the while thinking to himself that it was unlikely he'd need to know any of the great detail the shopkeeper was conveying. 

Shows what he knew. 

"Hi. I'm Yuzuru. I'm a human and I live here in this apartment. And I'd like to keep living here, so before I tell you my family name, or we go any further, I have a few questions for you."

"First," Yuzu continues, and finds he needs to swallow before he can continue, his throat's gone so dry with fear. "Do you, any of you whom have rung the bell, or any others present here as well, do you intend me harm?"

(_ 'Shouldn't I ask its name first?' he'd asked the shopkeeper, when he somberly instructed Yuzu on the order in which the questions should be asked. _

_ 'First,' the man had intoned, 'you should find out if you're in the middle of a conversation or a battle.' _)

Yuzu covers the bell with his palm, muting its ring. Silence surrounds him. He removes his hand, and in the silence, carefully repeats the commands the shopkeeper taught him.

"If none here intend me harm, ring this bell. If any one of you wish me ill, let the vessel remain silent."

  
**

Shoma watches Yuzuru flinch and gain a determined look. He can't help but admire that a little bit. He looks, and is acting, terrified. Talking to ghosts, it seems, isn't normal.

"Hello, No Family Name Yet Yuzuru," Shoma says aloud with a small bow of his head. "It's nice to meet you." Whether or not Yuzuru will hear him is a different matter, but Shoma hopes the sentiment is felt. He wants Yuzuru to feel some kind of ease.

Shoma glances around himself, as though he expects to suddenly see some other ghosts there. There aren’t any now, and there haven’t been in the time Yuzuru’s lived in the building. Not unless you counted the occasional ghosts of pets, that didn't seem all that interested in Shoma, much less humans, on various floors of the complex. He saw them in translucent images; sometimes they faded in and out of existence. Maybe that's how normal people saw him. 

Shoma reaches over and touches the bell again, so that it rings normally (as normal as possible in these circumstances). No, he didn't intend on hurting Yuzu. He just has something important to tell him.

And maybe, eventually, he can figure out what that thing is.  
  


**

The bell rings and Yuzu lets out the breath he was trying not to hold. He closes his eyes for a moment, just breathing, concentrating only on bringing his heart rate back to normal.

"Okay. Okay." 

After a few long moments, Yuzu shakes himself and shakes off the last remnants of fear. Again he squares his shoulders, sits up straight, and regards the bell soberly. Again he mutes it with his palm, but this time he leaves his hand flat on the table beside it. 

"Next question. What are you? Are you a kami?" Yuzu pauses, leaving room for the bell to ring. After a measured silence, he continues, and leaves a similar silence after each guess, in which the bell could ring.

"Yokai?"

"A spirit, like um, a kitsune?"

"...A ghost?"  
  


**

These options make Shoma smile to himself. Wouldn't it be something if he was a kami? But he feels like he would have a better memory of his life alive if he were a kami._ A kami of what, videogames? _ He jokes to himself. Shoma wishes he could just tell Yuzuru what he is, but again, the ouija board does not yield to his push.

No such luck, then. He just waits patiently for Yuzuru to guess correctly and touches the bell when the word comes up, probably a little too quickly. A _ yurei _. A ghost. A spirit of a person.

Haunting, specifically, Yuzuru. Shoma knows that for sure now. He hadn't had any reason to try and leave this apartment building before Yuzuru arrived, but he didn’t have any reason to stay, either. Now, he feels like Yuzuru is more important than anyone else in the entire building. Maybe he'd just been... waiting for him to arrive? But what would have happened if Yuzuru had moved somewhere else? Would Shoma have appeared there, or just waited here?

Shoma tugs his own spectral hair back into a little ponytail with his fingers, coping with his frustration so as not to lash out at Yuzuru like he had the first night. Being a ghost is so complicated.

  
**

The bell rings almost before Yuzu's finished speaking the word. _ Ghost _. Okay. Okay. 

"Okay. Okay. Oh jeez."

He exhales. Mutes the bell. "Okay. Are you an old ghost? From a long time ago?"

  
**

"Uh..." That wasn't a yes or no question. Shoma can't ring the bell to indicate if he's a new ghost or an old one. He's pretty sure he's a modern one, though.

So he just shoves the potted plant Yuzuru had tried to save earlier to the edge of the table in his direction until it's dangerously close to falling.

_ Don't ask me questions I can't answer! _

_  
_**

Yuzu's so focused on the bell that his little plant has jerked twice, moving closer to the edge of the table each time, before he notices it. 

"_ Hey! _ I said leave it alone!" he squawks, grabbing up the plant with both hands. As his hands curl around the pot, the air they cross through feels cold. And the terracotta clay of the pot is cold to the touch, too - which is definitely significant, because clay is a material that doesn't change its temperature quickly or easily. 

Yuzu sets the plant on the floor next to him, at his knee, and glares crossly. He's certain what he's cross with, but not _ where _ to look in order to make his glare most effective, so he glares at the table surface. 

"Jeez. I guess you didn't like that question." He thinks it over for a moment. 

"Then I'll be more precise. Okay?" Yuzu huffs. "Are you a ghost frommm, ummmm... the Edo period?"

Silence. 

"Um, Meiji? ...Meiji restoration? ...Oh, wait. I forgot: The Kamakura? ...Muromachi? Showa?"

Still silence. Yuzu slumps where he kneels, and shifts into a more comfortable cross-legged sitting position with a groan. "This is gonna take a while."

"Are you as old as the _ Heian? _"

  
**

Shoma huffs, and sits back. That plant isn't safe if Yuzuru keeps asking vague questions.

Now, Shoma isn't sure how old he is (was?) exactly. Not remembering a birthday will do that. But he's pretty sure he's in his 20s.

So that should put him in the Heisei period... probably. So the bell doesn't ring at any of those. Wait, he can remember eras but not his birthday?

Shoma reaches across to brush at some stray strands of Yuzu's head as a breeze that shouldn't be there.

"C'mon, I'm not that old!"

  
**

A cold puff of air gusts into Yuzu's face, fluffing his bangs up and biting at his nose. Wide-eyed, he gasps - a mistake, because the cold air rushes into his lungs, and he chokes on it. An asthmatic spasm squashes the air from his lungs, and he roughly coughs it away. If it's possible to look exasperated by a serious medical condition, he does so now, as the absolute absurd _ inanity _ of having an asthma flare-up because of a _ ghost _makes him scowl. 

"Gahck. Ugh. Ow. Did you just shove your hand down my throat or something?" he grumbles, even though he knows it's his own fault for getting so alarmed. "Nevermind, don't answer that."

"I've got to stop letting you startle me like this," Yuzu sighs. "You probably don't know," he continues, feeling a bit foolish as he addresses the empty air above his coffee table, "but I have asthma, so that - that kind of thing is gonna happen a lot, probably. It's usually nothing to worry about."

"But hey," he continues, smiling bitterly. "Maybe if it _ does _go wrong, you'll end up with company."

  
**

Shoma hadn't considered putting his hand in Yuzuru’s mouth, but now he’s glad he hasn’t, and he’s not going to, because that asthma attack seemed terrible. He wishes he could pat Yuzuru on the back, but maybe that would just make it worse.

He frowns at the joke. Yes, he's lonely, but he's not so desperate as to kill a human for it. Though, he guesses, that may have happened before.

Regardless, the idea of Yuzuru dying feels more painful to Shoma than not knowing who he his.

He flicks the bell twice. Two rings. Not an answer, be he does wish to continue and also acknowledge that he did hear that.

Yuzuru's attention snaps to the bell, and his eyes go wide. An expression of delight, and challenge, slices across the curve of his lips and the cant of his brow, and his eyes are bright and sharp in a way they haven’t been in _ weeks _ as he cups his palms around the bell, silencing it.

"You're impatient, huh? I like that. You're really interested in this? You're not bored?"

Shoma _ likes _that look in Yuzuru's eye. It's attractive and familiar. Finally, something fun.

He flicks the bell twice again. No, he isn't bored.

In answer, Yuzuru sits up straight, clapping his hands together, and grins at the bell. “Oh _ good. _”

"Alright. So... where were we. Heian?" He pauses, and continues after the silence. "Right, ok. So when does that leave...?"

One by one Yuzuru counts the eras off on his fingers. When he realizes he's getting the order scrambled he opens his phone, pulling up a list of eras in order, and reads down it. It’s notn pointless, but it is kind of funny. Yuzuru could be making up some of these era names and Shoma would be none the wiser.

"Okay, here we go,” Yuzuru continues. “Not Heian. Oh, I forgot to ask Nara. Nara? ...No, okay. Before Nara? ... Okay, not that either. Not Heian, or Kamakura, or Muromachi. Azuchi-Momoyama? ... Nope. I asked Edo, Meiji, and Showa. Oh. Taichi?

"Still nothing!?" he exclaims, as the bell continues to be silent. "But there's nothing left, except...Modern? Are you a modern era ghost? Like, from the war?"

Shoma doesn’t _ think _he's a war vet. Wouldn't he have, like, wounds? Missing limbs? But he doesn't have wounds now and he clearly died young 

He rings the bell anyway. He is modern, that's true.

Yuzuru frowns. "But we don't live anywhere near Fukushima..." he mutters quietly. "If you died on a battlefield, wouldn't you be haunting _ it _ , not here? That doesn't make any sense."  
  
_ Well, of course it doesn’t, _ Shoma thinks. But it's as close as Shoma was going to get to the correct answer, when Yuzu is framing his questions so imprecisely.

Yuzuru starts chewing his lip. "Are you sure _ you're _ from the war? Maybe did you have someone in the war, like a relative or a lover or something?"

Shoma keeps his silence and sighs deeply. This is getting complicated quickly and they're straying further from yes and no questions. Maybe he should push the plant again?

He glances at the table, noting again the ouija board there. The planchettte won't move, but maybe he can move the board itself? Or the things _ around _ the planchette.

Shoma gives the table a little jostle, making the triangle itself shift where it sat.

Yuzuru looks up sharply, attention grabbed by the table’s movement and drawn over to the ouija board as it shakes. The board itself moves, sliding on the table the way that the little potted plant had. And on top of it, the planchette slides off the center mark. Shoma sighs happily. That’s more like it!

"What, do _ you _ know how to use this?" Yuzuru is asking, examining the planchette. He turns it over in his hand, studying each side of it, learning the weight and feeling of it.

"Maybe this would be more useful," he mutters, now looking over the board. "It has more answers."  
  
_ Well, if you’re going to keep asking complicated questions, _ Shoma thinks, _ we need more complicated answers. _

Yuzuru sets the bell aside and pulls the board near, centering it on the table in front of him. He places the planchette on the board neatly. It clicks. "Alright. The shopkeeper told me this one only works if we do it together. I don't know the answers, so I'm not sure why that's what makes it work, but he insisted. So, you're supposed to hold it with me, like this." 

Yuzuru sits up straight. Then he changes his mind and moves back into a seiza kneel. He puts two fingertips of each hand on the planchette, arms held comfortably and loosely at his sides. Shoma watches him intently. "So, Mister...or Miss...Ghost, please put your. Um. Fingers? Do you have fingers? On the planchette like mine. And then..." Yuzu closes his eyes and exhales, centering himself.

"You should be able to move this. I'm going to keep my eyes closed. If you understand all the instructions, move the planchette to, uh, to the _ ‘ka’ _ character." 

  
**

This shopkeeper must have really known what they were talking about, because whatever Yuzuru is doing is _ working _.

Shoma places his fingers on the planchette, mirroring Yuzuru's posture as best as he can, given that he is shorter and also noncorporeal. 

He can feel something has changed in the little planchette. Now, instead of being impossible to move, it’s exactly the opposite. It has a more solid feel to it compared to a plant or a table, which he really has to focus on in order to move. But he doesn't have to struggle to move the planchette at all, as long as Yuzuru is holding it. It almost feels _ warm _.

As asked, Shoma moves the piece slowly on his own to the _ ‘ka’ _ on the board. He has to move slowly because he's sure if he moves quickly, Yuzuru will jump and let go, and Shoma doesn't want to find out what happens in case of a lost connection with this thing.

  
**

When his hands come to a stop, Yuzu opens his eyes. "_ Ka _. Okay."

He takes his hands off the planchette briefly, shaking them out; there's a tension, from nervousness or eagerness, he can't tell, that's stringing through him.

"Alright, um. Let's find out when you're from. Can you tell me anything about when you're from? A year or a thing that was.. around during that time. Like maybe a, a telephone that's attached to the wall? A fax? No wait, they still use those here."

He places his fingers on the planchette.

  
**

Shoma’s hands phase through the planchette as soon as Yuzuru releases it. The sensation of suddenly losing that warmth only serves to remind Shoma that he isn't living. It really sinks in now, that it's just a fluke of luck that made Yuzuru decide to give Shoma a chance to speak instead of just moving or finding an exorcist.

He shivers from an emotion he cannot name.

Tilting his head and folding his arms, Shoma thinks for a moment. Something he remembers from when he was alive, is it? To give a time frame? That’s actually pretty helpful, since he doesn't know exact years anymore, or even what year he's currently in.  
  
But oh, wait-- he _ does _ remember something! It's not much, but it’s a word that’s occurred to him before, without comprehension. Just a scrap of vocabulary floating through his mind. Now, he remembers what it _ is _. What it means. And that it could be the sort of answer Yuzuru is looking for. Hopefully Yuzuru will be patient with him while he methodically spells it out...it’s a pretty long word.

"_ VIDEOGAME _"

Shoma definitely remembers caring a lot about games, for sure. He can't place a specific one off the top of his head, but deep in his soul, video games seem important to him. He’s happy he remembered that about himself.

  
**

This time, as the planchette begins to move, Yuzu keeps his eyes open. He watches his own hands move, watches motion occur in his own body that he's not commanding. It's unnerving - scary, to be blunt. But Yuzu stays focused, not letting it shake him. He tracks each character that the planchette stops on, silently forming the syllables on his lips. 

And when the planchette remains on the final syllable, until it's clear that there's no more to spell out, Yuzu pulls his shaking hands off the planchette. With a shiver, Yuzu wraps his arms around himself, shoulders hunching.

"_ Video game. _" His voice shakes, and he clears his throat to try to steady it.

"S-so, I guess you're from. From around now. At least from the last. F-forty years or so? Video games come from, from the eighties, right?"

Yuzu sniffs and covers his face with both hands. His shoulders are shaking and he curls forward, into a ball.

He's already biting his lip to keep himself quiet, so he bites harder, using the pain to help him focus. With a fierce effort he sits up straight again, facing the ouija board. There's a guest, another consciousness, in the room. He'll be a _ good host _, damn it. 

"I'm s-sorry," he says. Another couple deep breaths manage to give him enough composure to continue.

"I, ah. Someone v-very dear to me, he..." Yuzu chokes on the thickness of emotion that feels like it's crushing his chest. To explain, he has to say _ was _ or _ had _ or some other verb in the _ past tense _. He's still not used to doing it, and he's pointedly been avoiding doing it at all in the last couple weeks. He exhales. 

_ I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. _

"Video games were very important to him. They remind me of him v-very much. I'll try speaking with you again tomorrow, but, but right now I just can't-- I--"

Yuzu lurches to his feet and stumbles from the living room into the bedroom. He manages to hold back his first sob until his face is fully smothered into a pillow.

  
***

**

*

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grief is both a healthy, necessary experience, and one of the worst experiences known. But Yuzu hasn't processed his.
> 
> We'll try to help him do that in chapters to come.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Drop us a comment to let us know how we're doing!


	3. third haunting: a succulent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wants to do something to help, but what can he do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter picks up immediately after the second one ends; reread the last few paragraphs of chapter two if you need a refresher on what's going on! 
> 
> _content warnings:_ generalized anxiety. general discussion of self-harm by way of social isolation. allusions to suicidal ideation.

*

**

***

_The ghost by my side, so perfectly clear_  
_ When I awake, you'll disappear_

_ Back to the shadows_  
_ With all I hold dear _

\- still here, digital daggers

### 《third haunting: a succulent》

Watching Yuzuru pull himself in tightly is painful. Not in the way that watching a person embarrass themselves would be. It hurts to see Yuzu this way, stricken with grief to the point where he barely speaks, quaking with effort to stay put together for a guest he can't even see.

Worse yet, Shoma has learned with certainty that Yuzuru is talking about Shoma _ to _ Shoma's ghost.

Is there... nothing he can do? He can't touch him as sobbing and cold air are not likely a very good combo for asthma.

He scans the board, knowing he cannot touch it to even make it say "GOODBYE". The cards he could probably flip over, but the likelihood that he's able to put together a coherent message is unlikely. The plant catches his eye.

With great effort on Shoma's part, and some finagling with how well a plant does INSIDE a ghost, that little potted succulent is spirited to Yuzuru's bedside table with a light _ clack. _Centered nicely and safe next to the light.

Will it be comforting? Probably not, but he wants Yuzuru to know that he's not mad about him leaving the conversation abruptly as some ghosts might be. For the rest of the night, he'll leave Yuzuru alone. No blenders or weird writings on mirrors. Just a calm, normal apartment.

Shoma has his own thoughts to consider, and he takes a place at the coffee table to wait for tomorrow, when Yuzuru is ready to talk to him again. Perhaps, if he lets those thoughts wander, memories will come back. 

That's the hope, anyway.

**

Yuzu has no idea how long he cries. He sobs until his throat is raw, and shakes with silent tears for a while after that. He sleeps only because his mind is wiped blank, his body exhausted, and when he wakes up, he doesn't, for a blissful long five minutes, remember anything. Not when he is, not what happened in the living room, not even, in a way, who he is.

It all comes back, of course, and he closes his eyes against the weight of it.

But when he opens them again, as he muddles through thoughts of making tea for his raw throat, or finding his phone so he can order delivery for dinner, he sees something on his bedside table that wasn't there before. That, when he last saw it, was in an entirely different room. 

Yuzu sits up gingerly, careful of his head which is ringing from all his heavy crying. He picks up the little succulent, cradling it in both his hands, and somehow finds his voice. 

"Ghost. Ghost, house ghost, did- did you bring me this?"

Was the ghost... worried about him? Did it sympathize, did it feel bad for him?

Yuzu doesn't know how to process the emotion slowly pushing its way up through him, like a little green sprout growing from razed ashen ground.

**

Time is weird for a ghost. It quickly as Shoma foggily comes in and out of thought about who he is. It's not like he sleeps, as he never feels exhaustion, but he does sort of space out for long periods of time.

He's pulled back to this reality when he hears Yuzuru calling hoarsely from the bedroom and realizes it's aimed at him. Heh. House ghost, huh? That's better than being called _ you _ with disdain.

He rings the bell once from the other room, lets it hum under his finger before it fades on its own.

**

Yuzu hears the bell, and its soft, almost apologetic chime makes something in his chest knot up tight. But, for the first time in a long time, it's a _ good _ kind of tightness.

"Ghost. I'm sorry I, ah, I'm sorry I got so overwhelmed. It's just, he's not been very long gone, and... It's still very painful. I don't know if it's the same for you. I imagine probably it's different, huh, from-- from that side...of..."

Yuzu trails off, mouth hanging softly open and eyes going fearfully wide. 

"Oh. You're. Ghosts are. Are real. And he..."

Slowly, carefully, Yuzu lowers himself back down to the bed, curled up in a crescent around the little succulent plant. 

His voice is thready, barely audible. Distantly, he thinks, he probably would find himself and this whole situation hilarious if he could get outside of his emotions for half a minute.

"...This is a lot."

**

Not been gone very long? That much catches Shoma's attention. How long has he been dead? Weeks? Months? It can't be years, if it's still so fresh...

Was there a funeral? Did they even have a body for the funeral? What was his family like? Did Yuzuru still talk to them? Did he ever? Come to think of it, Yuzuru hadn't been hanging out with friends the entire time he's been here. He's been completely alone. No phone calls.... Nothing.

Fuzzy memories float to the surface, like bubbles in water; existing long enough to know they are there, but vanish the second they are just about to touch the air.

While Yuzuru mumbles to himself about ghosts being real, Shoma gets up from the table. A sense of a need to do something pulls at him. It's that same pull that's been telling him there is something important he needs to tell Yuzuru. Before he realizes it, he's in the doorway of the bedroom, watching him.

"Yuzu-kun..." Shoma compartmentalizes the struggles he's having with his memory right now, letting the familiarity slip from his lips without his knowing. Yuzuru needs some help. But a ghost can't make breakfast. At best, he can move a thing from one room to another.

He decides to sit on the edge of the bed, creating a kind of weight for himself. A pressure at the end.  
  
"You have _ no idea, _" he says to him with a laugh, still unsure if Yuzuru can, or ever will, hear him. "But hey... At least we're both not alone anymore... right?"

**

Yuzu looks up from his succulent as the air in his bedroom cools. It must be the ghost, he reasons, but instead of the sharp, dire cold of the first time they met, this time the chill that the ghost brings into the bedroom feels milder, like the gust of cold air that falls onto your face when you open the freezer. On Yuzu's cheeks and eyes, raw and red from crying, it feels downright soothing.

Yuzu tucks his head back down onto the bed, pillowing it on one arm. Just past the edge of his vision, he can sense the color of the wrinkle in the air. This varying hue must be a quality inherent to the ghost, he figures, as it seems to always be right around where the cold sensation is centralized to. Right now, the ghost's glow is a yellow-toned green not unlike the muted chartreuse of his succulent plant. Yuzu touches its leaves gently, petting them with one fingertip.

"Yeah, that's true," he agrees quietly. "I didn't _ mean _ to be alone," he continues, too tired, too wrung out from grief, to feel enough self-consciousness to hold back. It's a ghost, after all, right? Who else is it going to tell? Yuzu laughs, a soft wrenched sound of pain. _ Even my laugh sounds like I'm going crazy _

"I really didn't. It just...happened. It hurt too badly, and I needed space, and then I just...stayed away. And the more space I took the more it hurt, and the more I ran from it. _ It'll be better when I'm out of this apartment building _, I thought, but then I thought what if that wasn't enough? What if I moved to the next neighborhood but it still hurt, because I'd pass the bakery where I'd get him his favorite--"

Yuzu shrugs. He can't even cry, not even one sob, even as sharply as the memory is stabbing him through: bringing home Shoma's favorite sweets for him, wrapped up in the cutest little paper bag the bakery had, with a bow. He'd make up the most absurd excuses for it - municipal holidays that neither of them even knew existed before Yuzu googled them; the two-year anniversary of a game launch; a special treat for a DLC release date; he saw a cute squirrel on his way home from work. Whatever the excuse, Shoma never blinked, never questioned why Yuzu was treating him. He always tore through the packaging quickly to get to the sweets, and sometimes Yuzu wondered why he was even bothering to pay for the gift wrapping, but he couldn't make himself stop. Maybe this time he'll notice there's a pattern to these 'random' gifts. Maybe this time he'll look up when he says 'thanks, Yuzu,' and he'll see everything laid bare in Yuzu's eyes. Maybe...

Yuzu shakes his head, burying his face in his bed's comforter and burying his hopes in the past. His thoughts he drags back to the present, to the most absurd conversation he's ever had. Confessing his lost love to a ghost.

"So I thought, let's not do this half way. I would have left the city _ entirely _, actually, just run and run and never looked back, but I can't lose this job. I worked too hard to get it. He'd whack me across the head if I left it just because I was upset about something."

"At least I did this to myself," he groans, gaze flicking over to the glow at the foot of his bed. "You didn't have a choice, did you?"

**

Without realizing it, Yuzu answers Shoma and in that moment, Shoma doesn't realize that this should be unusual. They're just talking, like normal people do, despite it being the least normal thing possible.

Listening to Yuzuru describe the scene, the bakery and a gift, he feels like he's seen it. Those gifts, bought for sometimes the silliest of reasons. Pretty bows and packaging that had to be specially asked for... There's a feeling there he can't quite put his finger on. Maybe bittersweet? He can't recall the tastes of the sweets themselves, but he knows they were good, because Yuzuru had brought them.

Shoma does feel like he would have smacked him if Yuzuru had given up a job he worked very hard for, alive or dead.

"No. I didn't." Shoma answers honestly with a small head shake. Maybe Yuzuru is still listening. It's nice to talk to someone, even if briefly.

"I don't remember what happened. One day, I was just here. And I knew I had to wait here for... something. This apartment was empty, so I stayed here so I wouldn't scare anyone. And not long after that, you came. I feel like I was waiting for you."

**

Yuzu tries to imagine what that would have felt like - suddenly simply _ being _, without explanation, without origin, without goal. Simply existing, aimless. It's a horrifying thought. But, colder than that thought is the one that strikes Yuzu next.

"You were waiting for me?" He frowns at his succulent, shoulders and spine winding tight. "But what if I hadn't come? What would you have...done..?"

Yuzu had looked from his succulent to the foot of his bed. Reflexively he'd been thinking he'd look in their eyes, offering compassion and sympathy and curiously looking for information, for reaction, from his conversational partner. At the foot of the bed is the cold ripple in the air, the _ ghost _, hovering, glowing a solid healthy green, brighter than Yuzu's seen it before.

Yuzu's looking to the _ ghost _ for a response, and all of a sudden like a bucket of ice water over his head he realizes, _ understands, _ that he's been talking to a ghost. Not just communicating with it by ouija board and bell, but _ talking to it _.

He shrieks.

**

What is it that Yuzuru sees that makes Shoma so terrifying? He can’t see himself in mirrors, but his hands and body seem perfectly normal to him. Whatever it is, it must be horrifying to continue to garner a reaction.

Sighing softly like the wind through trees, Shoma stands, releasing the pressure on the bed. He can tell when he has overstayed his welcome. It had been nice talking to someone while it lasted, so he will savor his conversation with Yuzuru.

He doesn't have anywhere else to go, but he should probably leave Yuzuru alone… So he leaves through the wall to the living area, nestling in the window that leads to the fire escape.

Yuzuru had brought up a good point. He doesn’t know what he would have done if Yuzuru hadn’t come. He doesn’t know anything about himself, with Yuzuru being his only clue. Very likely, he might have gone mad. Every day that passes, Shoma can feel his grip on what could be considered reality slipping away. He might even lose his own name, if he isn’t careful.

_I have to remember what I need to tell him. I have to remember. I have to. Remember._

Without his knowing, he falls into his own mind, Lacking in a proper brain, just being a pure soul, he sort of… phases out of thought, endlessly repeating softly to himself. It is, perhaps, about as close to sleep he has gotten in a long time.

It is tempting to stay there.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one step forward, one step back? don't worry. next chapter, they'll get the hang of this.
> 
> thank you for reading! please let us know what you think - comments keep us going! and we hope that our little fic is helping to keep you going right now, too.
> 
> stay safe. we'll see you next time,  
~running_with_luck & capra


	4. fourth haunting: a conversation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuzu glances to the bell, then back up into the air. He'd check the thermostat, see if he's accidentally left it set too cool, but he knows he hasn't. The chill he's feeling isn't mechanical.
> 
> "So, you have more to say today, I guess?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter picks up a few days after the previous one. if you need a refresher, reread the previous chapter's last few paragraphs before you get started.
> 
> enjoy the ride.
> 
> _content warning:_ a little bit of cursing. 

*

**

***

_ I dream you're still here_  
_ Ever slightly out of reach _

_ I dream you're still here _  
_ But it breaks so easily _

\- still here, digital daggers

### 《fourth haunting: a conversation》

When he is finally ready to begin talking again, Yuzu doesn't know where to start. How do you deal with something like this, anyway? He screamed in the ghost's...non-face...and plastered himself up against the wall until the ghost went away, leaving him alone in his bedroom. That's a pretty clear 'fuck you, go away' message, and the ghost hadn't done a damn thing to deserve it! And the one thing Yuzu is now certain of about this ghost, is that it didn't mean him any harm. Because it had gone away, leaving him to his privacy, instead of getting mad or violent at him for shrieking.

But... then it had _ stayed _ away. For days.

Today, before leaving for work, Yuzu laid a single thread over top of the succulent, marking the placements of each end, so that even the slightest movement of the plant would be noticeable. He came home from work expecting, somehow, the thread to have moved. He's been telling himself that the ghost is just being quiet; that Yuzu himself simply was too busy with work, distracted by the week's demands, to notice the smaller things the ghost was surely doing. It isn't throwing things anymore, as he'd asked it, but surely it is still...living here, right?

He stares at the thread, still laid in a perfectly straight line across the peaks and slopes of the succulent's leaves, and sighs. Enough is enough. Freaky as the situation is, his conscience can't take any more.

"Alright. Fuck. I'm sorry, alright?" He puts down his bag, sets the mail aside, loosens his tie and sits down cross-legged in front of the table where the bell stands beside the little plant. Taking the wand in one hand, Yuzu strikes the bell carefully. It chimes, loud and bright, startling in its volume. He allows the first note to begin to fade, then strikes it again. Into the resonating hum of the two notes, he raises his voice, as if he's speaking to someone in the next room. He doesn't know where in the apartment the ghost is, and while he's pretty sure ghost ears don't work like human ones, he still feels better being a little loud, just to be sure.

"House ghost! House ghost. I want to talk to you. I owe you an apology. I heard _words_ from you. It was freaky, I freaked out. I hadn't even realized I was hearing actual words, but I was already answering them. That was... 

"I didn't react well. I'm sorry."

**

Time is relative. To the living, time goes by with a minute hand, a clock that tells time, or the rise and setting of the sun that dictates when to be awake, to function. To the dead, time doesn't matter as much. Lacking the need to eat, breathe, do anything, time is practically meaningless. So when Shoma falls asleep, for lack of better terms, time flies by without his knowing. He feels like, if he just had the right question to ask, the answer would present itself to him.

Only when a bell, a familiar bell, rings so loud and clear in the apartment, does Shoma lifts his spectral head. Ah. Someone is calling. Yuzuru is calling.

Floating over to join Yuzuru across from the table, he listens to what he says. Apologizing, for screaming? Shoma brushes the bangs of Yuzuru's hair with his hand, knowing it won't connect, but it will make a breeze to let him know he's there. Idiot. He didn't have to apologize like that. Shoma doesn't remember specific movies off hand, but he's sure ghosts are supposed to be scary. And... well, it's not like Yuzuru knows he's Shoma, right? 

"I forgive you. I am sorry for leaving. Did you want to talk to me more today?" he asks, wondering if Yuzuru wants to talk more. Just in case Yuzuru cannot hear him again, Shoma rings the bell himself.

**

When the bell rings, Yuzu releases a breath he was trying not to admit to himself that he'd been holding. He shouldn't have been so concerned. Because if he cares as much about whether he's offended a ghost as whether he's offended a real live person...

Look, it's just that he's done thinking about death, that's all. He's done enough of that for a lifetime. So he'd rather not be reminded of the similarities between himself and the spirit haunting his apartment. The differences are safer.

"Okay. Thank you," he says, and tries to shake off his uneasiness. Ghost isn't mad, ghost still wants to talk, all's fine. It's all fine.

Yuzu glances to the bell, then back up into the air. He'd check the thermostat, see if he's accidentally left it set too cool, but he knows he hasn't. The chill he's feeling isn't mechanical.

"So, you have more to say today, I guess?"

**

Shoma gives the bell another ring to confirm that, yes, he did have more to say. 

Not that he thinks that he can have a conversation about Yuzuru's day, although he would like to, but he should at least introduce himself. Maybe even elaborate on the fact that he had, in a way, been waiting for Yuzuru's arrival. Not that he minds being called 'House Ghost'. It's cute, endearing even, but... He wants to hear Yuzuru say it again. And maybe talking it out with Yuzuru will pull up what he needs to remember.

Maybe even gain some peace.

**

Yuzu sits up properly in front of the low table, and the bell, moving into a seiza kneel and using a throw pillow to cushion his knees.

"I don't actually have anything specific to ask you," he admits, stroking his fingertip around the edge of the bell so it hums softly. Holding the bell feels comforting, warm even, as if he's holding in his hands something more alive than a bowl of finely milled steel. As soon as he realizes the sound is getting too loud, he stops, muffling the bell and putting it down.

"So instead of yes or no questions, I thought I'd let you talk to me. WIth this." He puts one hand on the Ouija board, which - like the bell and the tarot deck - hasn't left this table since he set them out over a week ago. He feels strongly that they need to stay out, though he imagines that's probably cinema-inspired sentimentality. Still, they've stayed, and the board is at hand now as he lets his gaze sweep over it, taking in all of its markings.

"If you'd like to tell me things with the board, please ring the bell." The chime is clear and immediate.

"Okay." Yuzu moves the bell aside and centers the board in front of himself, moving the planchette to the center of the board, not aligned with any particular marking, and rests his fingertips on it. "How about..."

"Please spell out the topic you want to talk to me about."

**

Shoma settles and sits up straighter with his hands over the planchette. He wants to figure out how to phrase this in as few kana as possible without scaring Yuzuru away forever. He seems to reject talking about Shoma at length, so... Maybe he can give hints?

_wa. ta. shi. Myself. _

That is the topic he wishes to talk about. Himself. Because, honestly, he has nothing else.

**

"About yourself, hn? That makes sense." Yuzu exhales, removing his hands from the planchette and shaking them out. There's tension in his shoulders that just keeps coming back, even though he's trying to sit carefully, with good posture. He's not sure why he's so on edge today.

He replaces his hands on the planchette and clears his throat.

"Alright. Here's the plan. I'm going to keep asking questions in the hope that makes it easier for you to provide answers. But if you'd rather I stop asking questions and just let you use the board a lot, ring the bell. But if not - what topic about yourself do you want to tell me?"

**

Shoma nods in agreement, then realizes Yuzuru can't see his nod and sighs. It would be so much easier if he could manifest himself into something visible aside from... whatever it is that Yuzu keeps seeing that freaks him out so much. He moves the planchette when Yuzuru replaces his hands.

_na. ma. e. Name._  
  
This is the only thing Shoma knows for certain, after all. His name.

**

"Your name." Again Yuzu sits back from the planchette, flexing his hands to get the tingles out. This conversation is more intense than any of the ones that they've had previously - even more than the one directly preceding this, the day that Yuzu heard an actual _ voice _ from the ghost.

Why, he's not sure. The ghost was speaking in free answers that day, too; the freeform format of the way the ghost is using the ouija board today isn't unprecedented. Maybe it's just because it was an accident that day, and today Yuzu is deliberately inviting conversation beyond 'yes' and 'no'.

Maybe that's it.

Still unsettled, but determined, Yuzu places his hands back on the planchette. "Okay. Spell your name for me, please. If it is a Western name, ummm, start with the "no" symbol, so I know you're going phonetically. If it's a Japanese name, I guess you can just start spelling. Though we won't be able to find out your proper kanji."

Yuzu trails off, cutting off his own ramblings, as the planchette moves.

**

Yuzuru seems a bit on edge today. Understandably. Shoma finally has a chance to talk to him. Tell him that it's been Shoma this whole time and he just desperately wants to tell him something important. However, Shoma also knows that every time his name has cropped up, Yuzuru has run away. It is likely that, after this, Shoma may see Yuzuru leave and never return... It's a risk he's going to have to take.

Braced for the worst and hoping for the best, Shoma moves the planchette under Yuzuru's fingers. 'Sho' is a bit more difficult, because there is no letter for it, so he'll just have to take the two kana that makes it and hope that Yuzuru figures it out for himself. He'd never want to try writing the kanji itself. The poor attempts to write kanji on fogged mirrors proved how terrible he is at it as a ghost.

"Shi.... yo.... ma..." A flare of memory crops up in that moment, similar to how remembering ones own name should feel, when a puzzle piece clicks into place finally after staring at the puzzle itself for hours. He remembers something about himself. "... U... no." Yes. His surname definitely was Uno. He's certain. Pretty certain. Positive.  
  
Almost.

Trying to keep his pride at remembering this bit of information quiet, he looks up at Yuzuru, to see his reaction.

**

Yuzu is concentrating very hard on keeping his arms loose, his hands lightly arched and properly poised, two fingers of each hand resting together on the small round planchette. He concentrates harder on this, controlling his breathing, forcing himself to remain detached, to remain calm and passive, letting the ghost use his physical connection to the planchette to communicate. If Yuzu freaks out or lets go, the ghost won't be able to continue. Or Yuzu might muddy the message with his own interference. He puts his full concentration into being a conduit, being attentive, being _ calm _. Even as his vision begins to haze over, narrowing down and down until the only thing in focus in his field of vision is each kana that the planchette stops on. Even as the only thing he can hear is his own heartbeat speeding up, not his own voice speaking the characters one by one as the ghost points them out to him.

Yuzu sits very still when the planchette comes to a rest on the '_ no _ ' syllable, afraid almost to speak and lose control of himself. He can't blink, can't _ think _, so he doesn't have a clue where he finds the coherence, the strength, to speak. It must be his voice - he recognizes it - but it feels distant. Everything feels distant, and numb, except the cool bone of the planchette under his fingertips and the way his skin feels tight, like it's squeezing him uncomfortably. Oh, and the tears sheeting down his cheeks, dripping onto his wrists and the edge of the ouija board.

"Shoma Uno. That. That's your name? Shoma Uno. P-please choose y-yes or no, if I've understood right."

**

Those tears make Shoma's heart ache. This feels different from the time Shoma first saw Yuzuru sob into a shirt the first day he arrived. Shoma is less confused. Yuzuru is no longer a stranger. Shoma has started to care about this man, and just spelling out his name for him has hurt Yuzu in such a way that Shoma feels it too. Maybe... it was a mistake?

Hearing his full name repeated back to him confirms Shoma's suspicions. yes, that's definitely his name and even more, he's glad to hear someone else say it aloud. _ My name hasn't been forgotten... _

Shoma tugs the little bone planchette to the "yes" to confirm that his name is, in fact, Shoma Uno. Yuzuru's hands are stiffer, so he has to give it more effort. There's some distance in Yuzuru's eyes... 

"It's me, Yuzu. I'm your Shoma," he says, wondering if Yuzuru will hear him again like the other night. Maybe it was just a fluke, but maybe hearing his voice, a voice that's trying to be comforting in some way, would help? If it isn't, Shoma's definitely going to enlist the help of the succulent again.  
  
**

The planchette moves. Yuzu watches it, and even though it's obvious which way it's headed, he still jerks like he's been hit when it comes to rest on '_yes_.' His hands pull away, shying back from the board, and he scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, pushing away the tears sheeting down his cheeks. He sniffles, bringing his hands down, blinking hard to clear his vision, and he's opened his mouth to speak - to say something, he doesn't know what, but _ something _ to explain to this ghost that the painful coincidences just keep continuing, that it's not the ghost's fault that he has the same name as Yuzu's dead friend --

But he stops, because there's fingertips on the planchette. Not just fingertips, fingers. Two hands. Poised as carefully as Yuzu's own had been. They're translucently blue, as if painted in mid-air by the most delicate of watercolor brushes, and they're faintly glowing.

Yuzu's gaze slides from the planchette to the fingers and their short nails, bitten, but with perfect cuticles; up to the hands, short and broad, and the wrists; then up the forearms, the arms, to the shoulders where clothing, the short sleeves of a t-shirt, finally comes into Yuzu's notice. Up from shoulders to the neck, the jaw,

_ that beauty mark, that one just under his jawline, that one that I couldn't stop wanting to kiss and never did, never could, never-- _

To the eyes. To the face, the rumpled hair and the moue of soft worried mouth and the round cheeks, the beautiful dark eyes, the snubby nose and the soft cheekbones and it's impossible, it's _ impossible_, it's him. It's Shoma. It's Shoma. It's Shoma.

_"I'm your Shoma."_

A wrenched, inhuman noise falls softly, weakly, from Yuzu's lips, and the tears rush forth anew. He doesn't sob, doesn't cry out; just that noise of aching disbelief and silent, endless tears. He can't look away from Shoma's face, his eyes, his sweet beautiful expression, the way his brow furrows as he worries, Yuzu's just sitting here crying, and Shoma's worried, and it's Shoma, it's _ Shoma_, and Yuzu feels, very distinctly, that if he blinks, if he looks away from Shoma now, if he moves even a centimeter away from this impossible miracle, he may as well just die, because if he moves, if he breathes too hard and breaks this moment, lets this slip through his grasp, he'll have one more sin on his conscience, one more thing to never forgive himself for.

All he can do is nod, weak, lost, still weeping in overwhelmed emotion, fear and loss and joy, stubborn furious utterly nonsensical _ joy_. He nods, answering a question that hasn't been asked, heart racing in his chest, barely breathing, transfixed.

It's Shoma.

***

**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well _that_ took them long enough. :D
> 
> now what?
> 
> scream with us in the comments.  
  
lots of love,  
~ running_with_luck & capra


End file.
